Thursday, August 3rd, 1755: We had an easy march today through Framingham, Weston, and were heading into Watertown, Massachusetts, when we were met by a gentleman who identified himself as Capt. Samuel Barnard, a Minuteman and member of the local Committee of Safety.

As he has done so often on this long march, Capt. Morgan consulted a list he kept in his pocket and said, “Bring him to me.”

The two of them spoke for a few minutes and the Captain turned to Lt. Humphrey and said, “Tell our company, Capt. Barnard is a hero of this revolt against tyranny. He has already fought the Redcoats. He has arranged for us to bivouac on a green less than a mile east of Watertown along the road to Cambridge. He says it has clean water and good forage for the horses.”

Everything Captain Barnard said about the Watertown campsite was true. What he didn’t announce at first greeting, he told us on the way to the bivouac: “Dr. Joseph Warren, killed in the battle of Breed’s Hill on June 17th, was my best professor at Harvard Medical School. He was also for several years in correspondence with Mister, now General George Washington, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and others about how to prevent the deadly spread of smallpox which kills more soldiers in every war than enemy fire.

“In General Washington’s last missive to my professor and friend, Dr. Warren, he wrote he had just undergone variolation—a process in which material from smallpox sores pustules of living victims is given to people who have never had smallpox. The inoculation process involves scratching the smallpox material into an arm or inhaling it through the nose. General Washington wrote he will also ensure any new units added to the rolls of the Continental Army must have had the treatment within a year or they shall be turned away immediately.

“Capt. Morgan, yours is the first Continental unit to arrive here in Cambridge from outside the ‘New England Provinces’ since this edict was handed down. How do you wish to proceed?”

Captain Morgan didn’t pause a second before saying, “We will all do whatever smallpox prevention General Washington wants tomorrow.” And we did.

Sunday, August 6th, 1775: We spent Friday and Saturday, August 4th and 5th in smallpox Isolation on the Watertown Village green, waiting to see if there were any adverse reactions to the smallpox variolation procedure. There were none.